


Deadalive

by scullywolf



Series: TXF: Scenes in Between [182]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Blood, Canon Temporary Character Death, Dana Scully's year-long Pregnancy, F/M, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Mentions of Cancer, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2018-03-14
Packaged: 2019-02-15 04:07:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13022916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scullywolf/pseuds/scullywolf
Summary: Those three months Mulder was "dead" were rough on Scully.





	1. Chapter 1

Work has always been Scully’s most reliable coping mechanism for loss, the one consistent thing she can put her back up against when the world is falling down around her ears. It serves as more than a mere distraction; there is a built-in inertia to the day, routines and tasks that bring order and a renewed sense of agency, something desperately needed after the sucking helplessness of having someone ripped from her life without warning. Steadiness in the most unsteady of times.

It is not completely outrageous, then, that her first instinct upon returning home from North Carolina is to go right back to work. It’s what she has always done. The flaw in this plan, however, is clear from the moment she steps through the office door.

Everything here reminds her of Mulder. Every single thing.

The same was true, of course, when she returned to work after his abduction, but at least then she still had hope of finding him alive. She ached with missing him every time she caught a glimpse of a scrawled note in his handwriting or her gaze landed on one of the photos tacked to the wall behind his desk, but that ache was tempered by the belief that she would eventually see him again. Now, on the other hand, there is nothing to soften the blow. She cannot deny the finality of burial. 

Making matters worse, she has arrived before Agent Doggett. The memories scream even louder in the emptiness. She doesn’t know what else to do, though, so she stays. That she is numb and cried-out is the only thing that keeps her at the desk, keeps her from curling in on herself and becoming immobilized by grief. Even so, she cannot bring herself to handle the expense report for their trip to Montana; she leaves that on Agent Doggett’s desk, grateful that he will take care of it without comment or question. Instead, she lets herself operate on autopilot as she checks emails and sorts through a week’s worth of interoffice memos.

Unfortunately, neither task takes an especially long time, and with Agent Doggett’s continued absence, the quiet in the office escalates from unpleasant to oppressive. It becomes harder and harder to ignore the looming question of _Oh God, oh God, what now?_ Without Mulder, what is this job to her? She has been keeping the X-Files going since he disappeared, and doing an arguably credible job of it, but if she’s completely honest with herself, she has been doing it primarily _for him_. Holding down the fort in anticipation of his eventual return. But with Mulder now removed from the equation, does she have the same motivation to continue? And what does it mean if she doesn’t? What kind of person would she have to be to walk away and just let his life’s work fizzle out into nothing?

It's too big and too much, enough to start chasing away the protective numbness, and she can feel herself beginning to lose her grip on the facade she's constructed for herself, on the ridiculous notion that she could handle any of this. What in the hell was she thinking, coming here?

Before the panic in her chest has a chance to build past the point of no return, she pushes back from the desk and stands. She needs some air, and she needs it right now. She gets up so fast that her vision starts to tunnel before she’s even made it out of the room, and she has to catch herself on the door frame, squeezing her eyes shut.

_Hold it together, hold it together, hold it together…_

“Agent Scully!”

Doggett’s voice startles her into opening her eyes again; he’s standing at the base of the stairs, his brow creased in concern.

“What’s wrong?”

_Nothing. Everything._

“I, um… I was just stepping outside for a minute.”

“I gotta say, I didn’t expect to see you here today.”

He can’t possibly know how much pain that seemingly innocent statement causes her. The fact that he didn’t know this is exactly where she would be today -- and the fact that Mulder absolutely _would_ have known -- makes her feel so desperately alone that it’s suddenly hard to breathe. Maybe, even unintentionally, Agent Doggett is right, though. This loss is so profoundly different from anything she’s ever experienced, and it’s crystal clear now that she is in no way prepared to cope with it. Not even a little bit. Her usual approach is not going to work, this time.

“Agent Scully? Hey, are you--? You’re bleeding.”

She gasps and reflexively brings her hand up to her nose. Her fingertips come away damp and red. 

Her voice is deceptively calm to her own ears when she tells him, “I need to get to a hospital. Right now.”

To his credit, he doesn’t question or hesitate, crossing the hallway to her side and bringing his hand to hover at her elbow. “Let’s go.”


	2. Chapter 2

Under normal circumstances, she should be rightly terrified by the prospect of her cancer returning while she is pregnant. Instead, a quiet resignation descends upon her as she undergoes the seemingly interminable hours of testing and waiting for results. 

Of course this has happened; it is merely the logical continuation of the escalating nightmare she has been living since Mulder’s body was found.

A few days ago, she might have said that seeing him dead on the ground was the worst moment of her life, but even that was quickly surpassed by witnessing the abduction of her last shred of hope alongside Jeremiah Smith. Then yesterday, she might have said that standing beside his grave, carrying within her the child she never even got to tell him about, was the worst moment of her life. But then came this morning’s crisis of confidence in the office and the realization that she can’t even count on the _one_ thing that might have had a _chance_ of helping her get through all of this.

And now? How can she possibly hope these test results will point to an outcome that will be anything other than completely devastating?

If the cancer is back, then the chip in her neck has failed. Any conventional treatment is unlikely to be compatible with a continued, healthy pregnancy. In that case, the very best she could possibly hope for is that she hangs on long enough to bring her child to term. The probability of her being around to actually raise that child is close to zero.

So there it is. What began as the most crushing loss she has ever experienced will ultimately end with the tragedy of a child, whose very existence is nothing short of miraculous, growing up with neither father nor mother. Distantly, she recognizes that she ought to feel something, anything, other than hollow resignation, but she cannot at this moment bring herself to mourn that loss of feeling.

There is a knock at the exam room door, and the first real surprise in hours comes when it is her regular obstetrician, and not the oncologist, who enters. The broad grin on Doctor Speake’s face is jarring, and Scully blinks.

“I have wonderful news, Dana. All of your tests came back negative. There is no sign of cancer whatsoever.”

Scully frowns. “I don’t understand. How can that… You’re sure?”

“One hundred percent,” Doctor Speake says with a nod, pulling up a rolling stool and sitting down beside her. She flips open Scully’s chart and hands it over. “As you can see, these blood cell counts are completely within normal ranges -- all your labs look great, actually -- and the MRI is also clean. Everything’s been checked and re-checked. You’re going to be just fine.”

She stares at the lab report, the numbers on the page swimming in front of her. It doesn’t make sense. Surely something has been missed. She can’t really be _fine_ , can she?

When she doesn’t respond, Doctor Speake puts a hand on her arm. “I understand how scary this has been for you, given your history, but the fact is, nosebleeds are incredibly common during pregnancy. As you well know, the vasculature in your nose is delicate, and both the increased blood flow and the changes in your hormone levels make it highly prone to rupture. That’s all that happened here, Dana. I promise.”

It’s an unexpected reprieve, a break in the unending nightmare. So why isn’t she more relieved? Why does this feel just as unreal as everything else? 

There is another knock at the door, and _Aha_ , she thinks, _here is the other shoe dropping. They mixed up my samples with someone else’s, and now they’ve come to tell me--_

“Dana! I came as soon as I heard.”

Her jaw drops. Surprise number two. “Mom? What are you doing here?”

“Well, Mr. Skinner called, but I was out at brunch with Kathy, do you remember Kathy? From book club? Anyway, when I got home I saw the message on the machine, but then I saw it was from hours ago, and I’m so sorry, Dana, I didn’t mean--”

“It’s okay, Mom,” she interrupts, holding up a hand. “I, um… Doctor Speake was just telling me that everything’s fine. It was just a, uh, a false alarm.” She still doesn’t quite believe it, herself, but she’s beginning to accept that her disbelief may not be entirely rational.

“Oh, thank God.” Maggie closes her eyes a moment and seems to catch her breath. “I was so worried! The message only said you'd been taken to the hospital, but he didn't say why. But you're okay? The baby's okay?”

“Both absolutely fine, Mrs. Scully,” Doctor Speake answers with another smile. “Dana did the right thing, coming in to get checked out, but there isn't anything to be worried about.”

“Thank you, doctor,” Maggie says. “I can’t tell you what a relief that is to hear.”

“Believe me, I’m very happy to be able to give you good news.” Doctor Speake stands up. “You can rest easy, Dana. I’ll see you in a couple of weeks for your next checkup, all right?”

“Yes, thank you, Doctor Speake.” Scully closes her chart and hands it back over. 

After the doctor leaves and closes the door behind herself, Maggie comes over to the stool and sits down. “Can I ask what happened?”

Scully looks down at her hands in her lap and takes a breath to gather herself. “I had a nosebleed at work this morning, and I thought… I was afraid that it might be… that I might be sick again.”

“Oh, Dana.” Her mom’s hand comes up to cover her own, but Scully still doesn’t meet her eyes. “Oh, you poor thing. You must have been terrified.”

She doesn’t want to admit how readily she’d simply bypassed fear and given up, so she just nods without saying anything.

“And at work, no less. I can’t believe they made you come back right away, after everything that’s happened. How can they possibly expect that of you? It’s cruel.”

“Nobody _made_ me, Mom. It was my choice.” 

_It was a choice that completely backfired, but that is beside the point._

“Well I don’t know what you’re trying to prove, but you don’t have to do that to yourself. For God’s sake, you buried the father of your child yesterday!”

That finally makes her look up. Something about hearing those words aloud knocks the wind right out of her, and she realizes suddenly, in a far more concrete way than the abstract understanding she had before now, that what she went through when her father died and what her mother must have gone through were two very, very different things. She couldn’t have imagined just how different, but now… now she knows. If the loss of a parent is shattering, the loss of a partner grinds those shattered fragments into dust. 

After Emily, she and her mother had both buried a daughter, but she didn’t feel right equating their experiences; she had, after all, barely known Emily. Her grief was no less valid, but it still wasn’t the same. This feels closer, however. It’s still not the same -- she and Mulder were only officially a couple for about six months, versus her parents’ 30-year marriage -- but if anyone can understand the sort of limbo in which she’s been existing since Montana, it’s her mother.

“I’m not trying to prove anything,” she says quietly, once she finds her voice again. “I just didn’t know what else to do.” She’s out of tears, but her throat is tight anyway. “I mean… he’d already been missing for months, so I… I thought I knew how it felt. To exist without him. But it didn’t feel anything like this.”

“Oh, honey. Of course it didn’t.” The sympathy in her mother’s voice threatens to undo her entirely. 

Maggie stands and puts her arms out. Scully slides off the exam table and lets herself be wrapped in a hug.

“You have to let yourself grieve him, Dana. You’ve always put on such a brave face, but admitting your pain doesn’t make you weak. And denying it doesn’t make you strong.”

Maybe not, but the mantle of grieving widow is not something she's ready to wear, either. Never mind that she is not technically a widow.

And it is not even about trying to put on a brave face for anyone else’s sake. Her stoicism is ultimately an act of self-preservation. It is a life raft, perhaps not enough to protect her completely amid the high seas of bereavement, but enough to keep her afloat, at least. Unfortunately, it would seem this metaphorical life raft of hers has begun to develop cracks in the hull, and as a result, she is rapidly facing the prospect of needing to learn how to swim in the middle of a storm. 

She doesn’t know how to articulate any of this in the moment, though, so she simply lets her mother hold her.

“Grief is a process,” Maggie says. “It’s different for everyone, and it’s different for every loss. But even though it’s very personal, that doesn’t mean you have to go through it alone. Why don’t you come stay with me for a while? I’m sure Mr. Skinner will understand if you take some time off work.”

Everything in her instinctively wants to rebel against the suggestion, but it is clear her instincts aren’t getting the job done this time. Much as she fears being smothered by her mom’s well-intentioned sympathy, maybe it’s worth trying a different approach. It is clear enough that simply going back to work isn’t the answer, and what else is she going to do? She cannot imagine that sitting around by herself at home will be any better.

“Okay,” she agrees.

With one last squeeze, Maggie releases her, and she takes a breath to steady herself before turning to pick up her jacket. She shrugs it on; at least she can look more put together than she feels.

In the hallway, she is startled to see Agent Doggett hurrying to his feet. (A third surprise.) She feels more than a little abashed to have forgotten all about him.

“The doctor said she gave you good news,” he blurts out before she can say anything. “You’re gonna be okay?”

“I am. And I’d like to apologize, Agent Doggett. You didn’t have to stay here all this time.”

“I did, actually,” he says, his eyes crinkling in a soft smile. “AD Skinner made me promise to stick around until you got some answers, one way or the other.” He reaches out a hand to Maggie. “Forgive me, I don’t believe we’ve formally met. John Doggett. I work with Agent… Well, I work with your daughter.”

“Margaret Scully. Didn’t I see you…?”

“Yesterday, yes, ma’am. Didn’t, uh, seem like the right time for introductions.”

“No. No, I suppose not.”

They both look at Scully like they’re afraid she’s going to break down at the mere reference to Mulder’s funeral, and she sighs. This is exactly what she _didn’t_ want. She tries not to squirm under their combined gaze.

“I’m fine,” she says somewhat brusquely. “Thank you, Agent Doggett, both for bringing me in this morning and for waiting around. I do appreciate it.”

“Hey, I’m just glad it turned out to be nothing to worry about. I know AD Skinner will be glad to hear that, too.”

“We’re all very relieved,” Maggie says.

“And listen, I don’t want to overstep or anything, but I hope you don’t think you needed to be back at work today just on my account. I won’t let the X-Files run into the ground if you need to take some time.”

Scully looks at the floor and clears her throat. “Actually, um, I was thinking about staying with my mom for a few days. If that’s all right.”

“Of course it is,” he says gently. “Take all the time you need.”

“Thank you, John.” She meets his eyes then, and he gives a little nod of recognition; he knows what it means for her to let down her walls like that. 

“Don’t worry about a thing. I’ll take good care of that office until you’re ready to come back.”

She gets herself signed out then and follows her mom to the car. The day’s events hit her in a rush the moment she sits down in the passenger seat, and she sleeps all the way to Maggie’s house.


	3. Chapter 3

“Tara and Matthew are coming over in about an hour to spend the day with us,” Maggie tells her the next morning over breakfast.

At first, she's perplexed as to why they would be here. Then she remembers that Tara's parents live in Bethesda and that she and Matthew have been staying for an extended visit during Bill’s current deployment. Scully saw them briefly at Christmas, and if she’s honest, she hadn’t been the best of company then. She’s likely to be even worse company, now.

“Mom, I don’t know if I’m up for--” 

“I thought it might be good to have something to help take your mind off things,” Maggie interjects. “They’re family, Dana. They’re not going to expect anything of you.”

They’re family in name, yes, but the reality is that Scully hardly knows her sister-in-law. She doesn’t have much in the way of a relationship with her, or with Matthew, for that matter. She hasn’t spent anything like the kind of time around him that she spent with Charlie’s kids, when they were little.

She realizes with a pang how much she wishes her younger brother could be coming for a visit, instead. Even with his dark sense of humor, Charlie has always had a knack for making her feel better. She hasn’t even had a chance to tell him about any of what’s happened; he left over a month ago for his latest sub deployment and won’t be back until sometime this summer.

It’s more than the mere lack of familiarity, though. Much as she hates to admit it, Tara has always seemed to represent the things Scully cannot have. She attended Bill and Tara’s wedding fresh off her breakup with Jack. Tara’s pregnancy with Matthew came on the heels of learning about her own infertility. Matthew took his first breaths as Emily was taking her last. And now? Bill may be out to sea, but in a few more weeks he’ll be coming home; Mulder never will. How is she supposed to sit and chat without that contrast ringing in her head the whole time? She won’t be able to help her reaction, and that will be utterly unfair to Tara.

“I don’t know,” she says, looking down at her plate. “I wish you’d asked me first before you invited them over.”

“But I didn’t invite them just for you. We’ve had a standing weekly visit since they got to town. I usually only get to see Matthew a couple of times a year, so while they’re not all the way on the other side of the country, I intend to take advantage.”

_Of course. So now I’m depriving her of “Grandma time” if I ask her to cancel._

“Well then maybe I should just go back to my apartment, so I don’t put a damper on your visit,” she says.

“Oh, Dana, don’t be ridiculous,” Maggie chides. As if it’s ridiculous to be less than enthusiastic about the prospect of awkwardly making nice when she still hasn’t figured out how to tell up from down. “Running away and holing up by yourself is the last thing you need right now.”

She bristles. “Really, Mom? You don’t think it’s up to me to decide what I need?”

“You told me yesterday that you didn’t know what you needed,” her mom says gently. “You asked for my help with this, remember?”

Sighing, she brings one hand up to pinch the bridge of her nose. She did ask; that is true enough. She just doesn't see how in the hell _this_ is supposed to help. How it will be anything other than uncomfortable and emotionally draining.

“Just give it a try, Dana. Let us be here for you. If nothing else, I bet Tara can answer any questions you might have about, you know, baby things. And with your brother gone so much, she’s had to do a lot of this on her own, too.”

Scully knows that her mom means well, but she feels sucker punched all the same. Being temporarily on your own while your partner is deployed is _not_ the same as being a single mother because your partner is six feet underground. 

Unable to even attempt a response, she pushes back from the table and stands. “I'm going to go take a shower.”

The water masks the sound as she cries for the first time since the funeral.

***

Scully shifts uncomfortably on the couch and wonders how much longer she can take this. Her physical discomfort may actually be outweighing her emotional discomfort, which is really saying something; borrowing pajamas from her mother was one thing, but despite the fact that she’s still not showing much yet, these slacks of Maggie’s are unpleasantly tight around the waist. With each passing moment of stilted conversation, carefully navigating around the elephant in the room, she thinks more and more seriously about begging off to go back to her apartment, if for no other reason than to pack a bag of her own clothes. Even Maggie shouldn’t find that too “ridiculous” a proposition.

And if she happens to take her time coming back, well, so be it.

“We got to talk to Bill on the phone last night,” Tara is saying. “He sends his love.”

“Oh, isn’t that nice?” Maggie says, a little too fervently. “Was it good to talk to your daddy, Matthew?”

“Uh-huh.” Matthew doesn’t look up from the tractor he is driving around on the floor.

The room lapses back into silence. Scully clears her throat.

“You know, Mom, I, uh… I thought I could get by without maternity pants for a few days, but I can hardly breathe in these pants you gave me.” She offers a half-smile and what she hopes is a self-deprecating little shrug. “If you don’t mind, I’m just going to run home real quick and pack up some of my own clothes to bring back.”

“Of course, Dana. Why don’t you let Tara drive you?” Maggie says mildly, and Scully tries not to let the panic show on her face.

“No, no that’s okay, I can drive myself. I wouldn’t want--”

“Oh, I don’t mind!” Tara cuts her off. “Really. I’d be happy to take you.”

“Matthew and I were going to watch Toy Story today anyway, weren’t we, Matthew?” Maggie says.

“Toy Story _Two_ ,” he corrects, abandoning his tractor at the mention of a movie. “With popcorn?” he adds hopefully.

“Don’t we always?” Maggie says indulgently, and Matthew cheers.

Scully watches the whole exchange with equal parts dismay and wonder. Her hoped-for escape evaporates -- forget a living room, now she’s going to be trapped in a _car_ with Tara -- but it’s also impossible not to imagine her mother interacting like this with her own child. It’s a rare bright spot in a future that otherwise feels bleak and difficult, right now.

“Please let me take you,” Tara murmurs beside her on the couch. “If I have to watch that movie one more time, I might lose my mind.”

In spite of herself, Scully smiles, just for a moment. “I remember babysitting Jason once a few years back. He made me watch Babe on repeat for something like six straight hours.”

“Now _that’s_ a good movie, but even the good ones get old after you’ve watched them a few times in a row. But kids, you know, they just fixate.”

Matthew, meanwhile, has begun bounding around, quoting lines from the movie. “Prepare to meet… Mr. Angry Eyes!”

“Oh my,” Maggie says, laughing. “Well come on with me into the kitchen, and we’ll make the popcorn. You girls can take your time. We’ll be fine here.”

“Bye Mommy,” Matthew calls over his shoulder as he follows his Maggie out of the room.

“Bye, Matty. Be sure and listen to Grandma Scully.”

“I know!”

She turns to Scully, expectantly. “So! Shall we?”

She can’t very well say “no” now, so Scully nods. “I’ll, um, I’ll just get my coat and keys.”

In the car, Tara says, “I don’t know what I would have done these past six weeks without your mom here.” 

Scully frowns, confused. “I thought you’ve been staying with your parents.”

“Oh, we have been. And it’s been good to spend time with them, don’t get me wrong, but they’re not… how can I put it? Well, you know I’m an only child. And I guess I was a pretty quiet kid. Whereas Matty… God bless him, but that little stinker can be a handful sometimes. So they’re not really up to watching him on their own. Which is fine! But it just means that your mom’s the only one who gives me a break now and again.”

“Oh. I, um, I didn’t realize.”

“She is _such_ a wonderful grandma, too. You’re really lucky to live so close to her. And I’m sure you know just over the moon she is about having another grandbaby.”

In truth, they haven’t really talked all that much about it. Aside from the first tearful conversation after Mulder went missing, and up until yesterday in the hospital, they’ve mostly talked _around_ it. She hasn’t shared her fears about the pregnancy with Maggie, what she went through with the doctors last month, not even the specifics of what happened to her last fall with the cult in Utah. It’s almost felt as if by not voicing her fears aloud, she can grant them less power, but the flip side is that it’s made her hesitant to share her hopes as well.

“Uh, yeah,” she says anyway, because even if they haven’t talked about it, she does know how much her mom loves the other grandkids. It stands to reason she’d be excited about this one, too. “It’s a left at this next light.”

“Got it. So are you a ‘find out what you’re having’ kind of gal, or do you want it to be a surprise? Bill and I thought about keeping it a surprise for about two seconds, but we both just wanted to know too bad.” Tara laughs, and Scully winces.

“I’ll probably find out at my next appointment,” she mumbles, looking down. The next words are out of her mouth before she can think better of them. “I was waiting for Mulder.”

Before Montana, she’d harbored the hope that she and Mulder might be able to find out together. That he would be returned in time to go with her to an ultrasound appointment, since he’d missed so much already, and this could be the one thing approaching normalcy that they could share, just the two of them, before letting anyone else in.

That is obviously no longer an option.

“Oh my… Shit, Dana, I am so sorry. I wasn’t thinking--”

“It’s okay,” she says, eyebrows raised because that may have been the first time she’s _ever_ heard Tara curse. “It’s okay, it’s an innocent question. You couldn’t have known.”

“Still, I’m sorry. I won’t pretend to know exactly what you’re going through right now, but… well, I know what it was like for _me_ , after Andy died. I don’t know if Bill’s ever told you about that. I guess I don’t know why he would have.”

“N-no,” she stammers, taken aback. “Andy?”

“He was my boyfriend in college. We were… well, we talked about getting married someday, even though we never officially got engaged. Didn’t really have the chance, I guess. He died in a motorcycle accident the summer before our senior year.”

“Oh my God. I had no idea. I… I don’t know what to say. That’s awful. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay. I mean, it was terrible, and even though it’s been, gosh, almost 15 years, I still miss him. But you didn’t know, and the only reason I mentioned it at all is just to say that I remember how it felt. When you’re trying not to think about him and just sort of hold it all together, but then someone goes and says something out of the blue that hurts like hell, even if they didn’t mean for it to. So I’m sorry to have done that, to you.”

It's unexpected and startling, this huge thing from Tara's past that Scully never knew about, and she wonders if her mom knew. She also realizes, with no small measure of guilt, that she carries at least some of the blame for the fact that her relationship with her sister-in-law is so superficial; she's never actually asked her anything of substance. She has always been so busy just trying to get through the next family get-together, especially these past few years, that she's never bothered to initiate a meaningful conversation.

Not that this is a story Tara would have been likely to want to share over Christmas dinner, but still.

“Tara, I'm… Oh, damn, that was my building. I wasn't paying attention, and we just passed it.”

“Whoops! That's all right. Easy fix.” Tara changes lanes to turn the car around, then glances at her sidelong. “And listen, I know you're probably not ready to talk about Mulder with anyone, and I get that, believe me. But when you are, I just want you to know that I'm here for you, if you ever need it. Or if you'd rather, there's this support group that really helped me get through everything. I can give you that info if you want. Or neither. Totally up to you.”

“Thanks, Tara,” Scully says, only a little surprised to find she genuinely means it. “That means… well, more than I can say, really.”

As they pull to the curb across the street from her building, she marvels at the fact that this forced alone time with Tara has gone so very differently than she expected.

“Do you want me to wait out here for you?” Tara asks, and Scully shakes her head. When they left Maggie's house she was practically counting down the minutes until she could shut herself in her bedroom and hide for a bit. Now, though…

“No, come on in. I was thinking maybe I'd sit and have a cup of tea, if you wouldn't mind?”

Tara smiles at her. “Sounds great.”


	4. Chapter 4

On Sunday, she goes to Mass, at her mother’s insistence. She tries to take comfort in Father McCue’s words, but they ring empty. It is hard to feel the warmth of God’s love when she left half her heart buried in the frozen Raleigh ground. Afterward, Maggie asks if she wants to light a candle for Mulder, and she ends up lighting half a row -- one for him, one each for the three grandparents her child will never meet, and three more for Melissa, Samantha and Emily. She stands there a minute, sadly contemplating the flickering representations of so many lost, searching for the small measure of solace this act used to bring. 

That experience aside, the days are generally not too bad. She gets together with Tara for lunch almost every afternoon. Sometimes Matthew is with them, sometimes not. They don’t talk about Mulder, partly because Scully is simply not ready, and partly because she cannot imagine what Tara must think of him; Bill has likely never had a single good word to say about the man. But it helps nonetheless. Tara is supportive and upbeat in a way that Scully doesn’t find too draining, and watching her with Matthew is no longer accompanied by unbearable pangs of envy. In fact, watching those interactions may indeed be the thing that does her the most good, giving her the capacity to imagine the future in a way she’s struggled to do since the funeral. 

Though the days get better, the nights remain difficult. If anything, they’ve gotten worse, now that the initial numbness has worn off. It is not only the nightmares, which are unrelenting and every possible variety of horrible; it is also the soul-deep loneliness, which she manages to more or less hold at bay during the day but finds herself incapable of banishing, alone in the dark. Memories, both good and bad, mount a near-constant assault, the happy ones causing just as much of an ache in her chest as the sad ones. Memories of Montana are, of course, on frequent rotation, but just as painful are the ones from the last night she and Mulder spent together before he left for Oregon with Skinner.

If she had known then that it would be the last time she would ever hold him, she would never have let him leave.

She supposes this is what Maggie meant by “allowing herself to grieve him,” not that she has much of a choice in the matter. Every night feels like an onslaught over which she has no control. After the first few nights, she stops even trying to fight it, appreciating the fact that the days are more or less bearable and then just leaning into the pain when it comes. Maybe the fact that she’s functional during the day means that it is indeed cathartic. She doesn’t know.

Periodically, she calls over to her apartment to check her messages. Most of the time, the machine is empty, but one morning, after she’s been at her mother’s house for nearly a week, there is a message from Mulder’s landlord.

“I’m calling because I saw Agent Mulder’s obituary in the newspaper, and I wasn’t sure who else to talk to about clearing the things out of his apartment.”

She sighs. When he first went missing, she made arrangements to keep his rent paid monthly out of the account on file, but obviously that can’t go on indefinitely. There probably are things of his she will want to keep -- will want their child to have -- and she supposes the Gunmen might want some of his things, as well. It’s a big job, though, and if she could barely handle being in their office after his death, how on earth is she going to manage going through his entire apartment?

She calls the landlord back, hoping he will give her some time to take care of things. To her dismay he says, “I’m very sorry for your loss, Ms. Scully, but I need everything out of there by the end of the week. I’ve got some people coming to look at the unit on Saturday.”

_Saturday? There’s no way, that’s too soon, I can’t, I can’t…_

“Rent it to me,” she blurts without really thinking. “There must be time left on his lease. I’ll take it over until it’s up.”

The landlord pauses. “With all due respect, ma’am, I rent apartments. Not storage units. So unless you’re planning to move in--”

“Please. I just-- I need more than a few days to go through everything. And you’ll save on utilities if there’s no one living there. When is the lease due for renewal?”

“Not for another… let me see… almost six months. And it’s already been sitting empty since June. I don’t know.” He pauses again. “Although I guess you’re right about the water and electric bills. They _have_ been lower.”

“And they can stay that way for longer if you let me take over the lease,” she presses.

“Well… okay, I guess. If that’s really what you want.”

“It is. Thank you. I’ll come by this afternoon to sign the paperwork.”

She hangs up before he can change his mind, letting out a shaky breath.

The full weight of what she’s just agreed to cuts through the relief; it is probably foolish to take on a second rent, given her salary. Oh, she can make it work for six months, even if she has to dig into her savings a little, but should she? The panicky feeling that rises in her throat every time she thinks about going through Mulder’s apartment convinces her that she absolutely should, but it also tells her something else.

She is doing better, yes. Staying with Maggie, spending time with Tara and Matthew, all of it has helped her to begin regaining her footing. But she still has a long way to go. She may have fooled herself into thinking she is getting a handle on things, but that’s only because she hasn’t had all that much to actually _handle_. It would be easier to stay here, avoiding work, avoiding the constant reminders that Mulder is gone, but avoidance will only delay the actual healing process. As painful and difficult as it might be, she needs to get back to her life. She needs to learn how to navigate her new normal, whatever that ends up being. And she needs to do it _before_ the baby comes.

Looking down, she places her hand over the swell of her abdomen and takes a deep breath. She’s not ready for any of this, but if she waits to be ready, she will be waiting forever. It’s time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Confession time: I'd originally planned for this fic to cover the entire 3-month gap between Mulder's funeral and the rest of the episode. However, at the rate I've been writing, I'll still be working on this a year from now. :P So I'm calling it done for the time being, with the promise that I will revisit this part of the ep eventually, because there's just so much to unpack. In the meantime, I'm going to write one more short scene from later in the episode and then move on. Thank you for your continued patience and support. :)


	5. Chapter 5

She has this recurring dream.

It started about a month after Mulder’s funeral, and she’s had it at least once a week since then. The location of the dream isn’t always the same; sometimes she’s at home, sometimes in the office or her car. But no matter where it takes place, in the dream she always gets a phone call, and it’s always Mulder’s voice on the other end.

“Scully, it’s me.”

The first time it happened, she woke up gasping, elation plunging into grief as reality tore apart the illusion. _It was just a dream. He’s still gone. I’m still alone._ After it recurred a few times, she grew angry, furious at the cruel trick of her subconscious, even lashing out in her sleep to yell at him over the phone. 

“You’re dead, Mulder! Stop doing this to me! It isn’t fair!”

She kept having the dream.

Anger gave way eventually to resignation. Now when he calls her, she tells him about her day, or works through problems she’s having with cases, the way she used to “talk” to him in her head when he was missing. She’s not lucid dreaming -- there’s no conscious control over what she says and does -- but apparently her unconscious mind has decided she needs this, whether or not she wants it. It still hurts when she wakes up, but not as sharply as it used to. It’s a dull ache that lingers and leaves her quiet for the rest of the day at work, rather than a piercing emptiness that leaves her struggling to catch her breath or make it out of bed.

One night, the phone rings for real, waking her from a dreamless sleep. She answers it, expecting to hear Doggett’s voice, or Skinner’s. Instead, it’s a woman, whose voice she doesn’t recognize.

“I’m looking for Dana Scully?” 

“Y-yes, this is she. Can I help you?”

“Ma’am, this is the admitting nurse at Annapolis Naval Hospital. I’m calling because you are listed as the next of kin for a man who’s been brought in.” Her stomach twists with fear over something happening to one of her brothers, but she is completely unprepared for what the woman says next. “A Fox Mulder?”

“Wait… what?”

“Yes, ma’am. I assume he was missing and presumed dead because he showed up in our system as deceased. But we have a positive ID from the FBI agents who brought him in.”

_But that’s impossible. There has to be some mistake._

“Are you telling me that he’s… he’s alive?”

“I don’t know much about his status beyond the fact that they’ve got him on a ventilator.”

She says something else, but Scully can’t make out the words over the blood pounding in her ears. _They don’t put dead bodies on ventilators._

“I’m on my way.”

Her hands shake as she rushes to get dressed. Not letting herself get her hopes up would be the smart thing, but it’s a fool’s errand. If it’s true… if he’s really alive… She’s had prayers answered before, but never like this. Never in a way that completely defies not just explanation but reality itself. How in the hell could he go from a casket six feet underground to a hospital bed 300 miles away, three months after burial? It’s the very definition of impossible.

A thought hits her then that stops her in her tracks. _What if his death itself was a lie? What if that was never Mulder’s body to begin with?_

After they found him in Montana, she begged Skinner to countermand the autopsy order. She was in no shape to perform the autopsy herself, and she couldn’t bear the thought of anyone else cutting into him. It was clear from an external examination that he’d been tortured, and her emotional reaction to that fact overtook the rational response she would have had under any other circumstances. Probably against his better judgment, Skinner did as she asked, and Mulder was buried without anything more than a cursory blood type match to confirm his identity. There was no reason to think additional confirmation was needed, and she was too distraught at the time to question the result.

But they have been fooled before. Maybe they were only supposed to think he was dead so they would stop looking for him.

She is so distracted that she leaves her cell phone charging on the kitchen counter, only realizing when she reaches for it in the car to call Skinner. She curses but doesn’t turn around. If he’s not already there when she gets to the hospital, she will call him from a pay phone. 

The whole drive to Annapolis, she tries in vain to keep her thoughts in check. _Which is more plausible, Dana - that you buried a man you only thought was Mulder, or that the real case of mistaken identity is this one, tonight?_ Obviously, it is the latter; the nurse only said that “FBI agents” made a positive ID, not that any actual verification had been done. Still, now that it’s taken hold of her heart, there is no suppressing the hope that somehow, against all odds, he is alive.

When she all but runs through the hospital doors and sees Skinner standing in the hallway, she knows. Odds be damned, he’s come back. Mulder has come back to her.

_Oh my God._

***

_“Tell me it’s true. Tell me.”_

The naked hope in her eyes is heartbreaking, and Skinner almost lies to her, almost tells her there’s been a mistake. It would be far kinder to crush her hope here and now, rather than watch her go through the inevitable agony of thinking she’s got him back only to lose him again. Because she will lose him again. Whatever he hoped might happen, bringing Mulder up out of the ground, the man in that hospital bed is never going to wake up.

He can’t lie to her, though. “It’s not what you think.” He frowns. “How did you even find out about this?”

“The admitting nurse called me. She said--” Her voice cracks, and she blinks back tears. “Please, sir. I need to know.”

Skinner clenches his jaw. Part of him wishes he’d listened to Doggett, aborted the exhumation, let sleeping dogs lie. That was never an option, however, and now what’s done is done.

“I got a call yesterday. Fishermen pulled a body out of the water off the North Carolina coast. An autopsy was ordered but called off when the pathologist found… vital signs.” Her eyes widen, and he rushes to get the rest out before she can jump to the wrong conclusions. “The body was later confirmed to be that of Billy Miles.”

She blinks, clearly thrown. “Billy Miles? But they told me--”

“I made a judgment call. One that I’m not sure was right, but I don’t see how I could have done anything different.” Like a coward, he looks away from her face before he continues. “I ordered Mulder’s grave exhumed and his body examined. The same doctor who caught nearly imperceptible vitals in Billy Miles… found the same thing in Mulder.”

“Oh my God,” she whispers, bringing her hands up and clasping them together in front of her mouth.

“Listen to me, Dana. You need to understand… The fact that he’s clinically alive does not mean his prognosis is any better than it was when we found him. The doctors can’t explain how any of this happened, but we don’t have any reason to think he is ever going to walk out of here, okay?”

The door opens behind him, effectively cutting off anything more he might have said.

***

_“I have to see him.”_

_“I know. But I wish you wouldn’t.”_

She brushes past him, and Doggett watches her go, more sad than angry but not by much. They _agreed_ not to tell her. 

“You made a big mistake calling her, sir,” he mutters as soon as she’s through the door.

“I didn’t call her. The hospital did. Believe me, John, I don’t like that she’s here any more than you do.”

Doggett turns around, and Skinner does look genuinely unhappy. He’s probably not lying about calling her. It’s cold comfort, though. Whoever did the calling, she’s here now, and he doesn’t see this ending any way but horribly. She doesn’t deserve this, damn it. No one should have to endure what she’s already had to go through, let alone what’s coming, but least of all her.

“What did they say?” Skinner asks, and Doggett shakes his head.

“Nothing good. His body is still decomposing, for Christ’s sake. Explain to me how _that’s_ possible.”

“I can’t. It’s just as impossible as everything else about this case.”

“And yet here we are.” Doggett frowns, glancing back at the hospital room door. “We never shoulda dug up that grave.”

“Look, what do you think would have happened once she found out about Billy Miles? There’s going to be a case report on him eventually. Or did you think we could keep that from her forever, too?”

“Maybe!” he says, a little too loudly, then takes a breath and lowers his voice. “Sure as hell would’ve been worth trying. You know, some truths don’t need to come to light, when all they’re gonna do is cause pain for someone who’s already had more than their share.”

Skinner sighs. “I don’t disagree. But I’m afraid that ship has sailed. All we can do now is try to help her through this.”

Doggett shakes his head again. “Honestly, sir? I’m not convinced there’s a single thing we _can_ do to help her through this.”

***

His heart thuds steadily under her ear, evidence of the miracle to which she is bearing witness. It’s a sound she never thought she would hear again, and she thinks it might be the most beautiful thing she has ever heard. Grateful tears slip down over her nose, falling on the fabric of his hospital gown. Whatever happens next, he is here now. Despite all of the odds, he is here, and he is alive.

She imagines a message in the rhythm of the beats.

_Scully… it’s me… Scully… it’s me…_


End file.
